Europeans coming to America for the World Cup are shocked by our prosperity. A German guy has his mind blown by Buc-ee’s. A Swedish woman is amazed by ranch dressing, says it's "like crack." She claims that the internet on a plane flying over the Rockies is faster than what she has at home. She declares “The U.S.A. has completely radicalized me within 48 hours.” Americans can romanticize Europe all they want. But it's good to have a higher standard of living. And we do, thanks to freer markets and mass migration. 🇺🇸

Thomas Jefferson argued a case called Howell v Netherland in the highest colonial court of Virginia in 1770. He was trying to gain the freedom of the grandchild of a ‘mulatto slave.’ He lost. But what is remarkable is how intricate the racial distinctions were re who is a slave and who is not. He argued there was a point where a slave woman’s offspring - by virtue of some ‘white blood’ interceding - became a ‘free man’ by virtue of ‘natural law.’ He goes through distinctions that reminded me of the Nuremberg laws in Germany. This is the kind of thing that should shed light on the high rhetoric of the founding. It was so much more complicated than the standard line - which we will see constantly as we approach the 250th anniversary.